


Untouched in my Hands

by DustToDust



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustToDust/pseuds/DustToDust
Summary: Thoughts are not sins unless a man were to act on them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Still working on this, but am posting intro before the 3rd episode completely tears apart all my ideas. Forgive any bungling of Catholicism here.

Dust motes float on the still air, flashing and dancing through the beams of sunlight that come in through the newly installed windows of the church. It’s a beautiful sight after so long of the inside being a black and charred mess, but Matthew pays it no mind as he kneels before the altar. Hands clasped in prayer, eyes closed to the world, and the beads of his rosary clicking through his fingers one by one with a meditative rhythm.

“-and do not bring us into temptation,” his prayers fall out from his lips and fill the empty space around him. It’s far too early for what little congregation he’s gathered in Deadwood to come in, and the many drunken lost souls who wander in from time to time are likely still passed out in back alleys or ditches. “But rescue us from our own evil.”

His knees ache but Matthew doesn’t move and takes the slight discomfort as merely part and parcel of his devotion as he prays. Not quite penance as there are no other priests for hundreds of miles around to hear his confession and give him absolution. He has faith though that God knows the circumstances of bringing the faith to such remote areas and will accept his attempts at spiritual self-sufficiency as it were.

Or maybe He won’t.

“For thine is- is-” Matthew stumbles and trips over the familiar words at his doubts and has to stop to take a deep breath. His thumb and forefinger pressing a wooden bead long worn smooth between them hard enough to hurt as he struggles with that thought. 

Deadwood is a lawless and godless place, and it _fights_ to maintain that status. Matthew only has to look at his predecessors to know that. Despite the relative newness of the town there is a distressing line of men fallen from Grace here, and the few who didn’t fall --who kept strong to their vows-- did not last long. Matthew only has to take a deeper breath to still smell the smoke that razed the building as proof of this fact.

It’s why he had such an easy time asking for this church to build his own flock. There are any number of men eager to spread God’s love in the west. Matthew knows because he has gone through a few other churches before Deadwood with two or three priests in residence already. But Deadwood? No one had been eager to come tend the town, and Matthew cannot blame them.

Wind rattles the boards and windows of the church and a dog howls in the distance as Matthew eases his grip and begins again. “Our Father, who art in Heaven-”

There is no other priest to hear his confessions, to give him absolution, or assign him penance for the venial sins all men struggle to overcome. He cannot hear his own confession or absolve himself of his sins, but he will perform his own penance regardless of if it will do him any good or not. Deadwood is a town filled with temptations and it leaves him feeling wrong to not pray in penance.

For the lost women he sees selling their bodies for carnal acts whom he does not talk to. For the graves he finds himself having to desecrate even though it is in the name of vanquishing evil and saving lives. For the drink that he finds himself accepting more often than not these days, if only to help ease his dreams. For not pressing harder when Miss Whitlock’s interest in “alternative methods” are less scientific and more heretical in nature. For the slow suspicion that the faceless Dealer he wagers with on occasion might not be as divine as he likes to claim. For noticing, and then _looking_ for, a flash of startling blue hidden too often under the brim of a hat and wanting-

“-give us bread this dai- no, dammit,” Matthew stops again and opens his eyes, flustered at the way his mind has strayed. 

The slant of the sun has shifted enough to let him know he should be setting about his business soon. Open his doors to the town and begin his work shepherding them into the arms of God. The weight of the beams overhead and the empty pews behind him settle across his shoulders to remind him. Of his position, his vows, what he ought to do, and what he ought not do. 

What he ought _not_ be thinking about.

He rises to his feet and tucks his rosary away. His knees welcome the change with a loud pop as he limps away from the altar carefully ordering what’s expected of him for the day. Keeping his thoughts on the church, his small flock, and God. The way all men of the cloth should be doing when in His home, because any other thoughts do not have a place there.


	2. Chapter 2

“Give me a distraction,” Aloysius had said, dragging a thick log into place and kicking some rocks away so he could lay out comfortably behind his long rifle. “And I’ll tag those sum’bitches real good.”

Horse thieves are common to all areas, but it seems that only in Deadwood do they sell the living horses and keep the dead ones. Four men have already died under the nightmarish hooves of an undead horse stampede for daring to interfere with one of the thieves’ heists before the Sheriff had asked them for aid. There’s been no sign of the thieves using people so far, but none of them were willing to chance it and opted for a confrontation from a distance.

The thieves are set up in a series of cabins. The wood rotting through from a failed or abandoned claim years before. A makeshift corral stands on one side, packed with more horses than there’s room. The smaller herd of undead horses stand eerily placid on the other side, bone pushing through rotting skin, downwind of the living ones. 

It does little to help. Matthew follows Clayton along the edge of the corral furthest from the building and has to bite his tongue to keep from gagging. He does not want to think how the women are handling it from the other side where they are carefully cutting the ties to one section of the pen. Miriam had produced two handkerchiefs before they parted ways and he prays it helps.

“That one,” Clayton murmurs catching Matthew’s full attention as he nods to a horse that looks no different than any other to him. Before Matthew can ask, the man is sliding through the slats of the corral.

A few horses snort and stamp at the movement, but Clayton has his hands up and soothes them with a quiet murmur. This close Matthew can see the way some of the horses are trembling, their eyes rolling with each shift of the wind that brings a stronger stench of death towards them. 

Matthew holds his breath and prays as Clayton gently pushes through the horses toward the one he marked. Stopping every time a horse gets too antsy to soothe it until he can push further in without getting kicked. It seems to take hours but likely is only minutes before he’s throwing a length of rope around the horse’s neck and gently pulling it back. 

“Here,” the rope is thrust into Matthew’s hand and he tries to mimic Clayton’s loose but firm hold as the man ducks back out. 

The horse snorts a protest that is not eased even when Matthew holds his free hand up to mimic Clayton’s earlier gestures. “Easy, easy.”

“We all clear?” Clayton adjusts his hat as he stands and looks around them. Eyes piercing the dark and likely seeing far more than Matthew ever could hope for.

“Uh-huh. I mean, yes, we are,” he had seen the flash of skirts as Miriam and Arabella headed back up to Aloysius’ position. Likely only because they had allowed themselves to be seen by him. Miriam and Arabella were both old hands at remaining hidden. A skill both women hinted at with a kind of darkness he tried not to dwell on too long.

“Let go then, Reverend,” Clayton barely waits for Matthew to uncoil the rope before swinging back with one hand --a flash of white in the dark, Matthew hadn’t noticed him removing his glove-- and smacking the hind end of the horse hard enough to make it squeal and rear back. Front hooves knocking into the fence and narrowly missing Matthew’s head only because a hard yank on the back of his duster makes him stumble out of range. “C’mon!” 

The whole herd spooks as a unit. Already on edge and feeding on each other. The loose section gives under the panic and they all bolt with a noise loud enough to rouse the thieves who come stumbling out in their underclothes shouting in confusion. Confusion that grows to panic when a sharp retort of gun fire downs one of them. 

It's a beautiful execution of their plan but Matthew is too busy stumbling over his own feet as he’s dragged into the closest bit of brush. Miriam’s face flashes before him, concerned as she steadies him when he skids to a stop, “Reverend, are you alright?”

“Fine,” Matthew manages to mumble. He repeats himself when he’s drowned out by the familiar double firing of Clayton’s pistols as the man joins the shootout. Matthew fumbles for his shotgun, reminded abruptly of the danger they’re still in as the sound of the stampeding horses grows faint. “I’m fine, thank you.”

There is no time for thinking then as the undead horses suddenly rear up with a sound more frightening than any Matthew has heard before, and then everyone is far too busy with the important business of staying alive.


End file.
